For whom the bell tolls.
A nd so Saddam is no more. It seems an awful way to end this year with.
Any death sentence just doesn’t sit right with me. It feels as if we’re punishing evil with evil – and that it makes us stoop as low as the person we’re executing. I for one had rather seen Saddam in a shithole of a prison for the rest of his life. But I have an inkling that if he’d been allowed to live, a lot of ugly scandals would have reared their ugly heads. Such as hidden agenda’s, bargains struck between Irak and the west .. etc. And of course we can’t have that now can we? No, better to hang the culprit as fast as we can, before he gets a chance to pull the skeletons out of the closet.
We all have our mouths full of being so sophisticated and forward. Sometimes it seems we’re still living in the dark ages though.
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Lyanna
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Trouble in those parts is that if he lives, his followers will always hope to free him, or to struck some kind of bargain to get him released. You can’t compare those people with us in terms of sophistication. In a lot of ways they still live in the dark ages.
The only good thing about death penalty in my book is that it won’t cost tax-payers the huge amount of money of feeding, housing, etc a criminal all his live.
Hidden agenda’s would have been discovered at his trial, I’m sure he flung every filthy little detail about his enemies in the courtroom.
Too be honest I’m not feeling sad one bit he’s dead, he was a cruel evil man, who did terrible things in his life. I feel like he deserved it and more.
I join you in the opinion that death penalties are absolutely not the solution to these things.
I feel for the Kurds that never got to hear judgement towards what happened to them.
Guess I am just as torn about it as many are.
And the hidden agenda…definately one of the reasons that he was killed this quickly. The US and many others have things that they wouldn’t be proud off on their records when it comes to the killing of the Kurds.
Ish: the cost aspect only works when sentence and penalty is swift, like the process in Iraq. Note that in the US a death sentence actually costs more, due to the huge legal costs associated with it.
Personally, I’m torn on the issue. Normally, I’m not really in favour, because it’s truly irreversible. Granted, making up to someone who spent 15 years in jail wrongfully can be hard, but at least he’s alive. Also, for some crimes death is too easy. I *want* a child murdered to be scared the rest of his live in prison…
That said, I do think actually killing him can be some sort of closure for the Iraqi people. He’s gone. Really dead. Won’t be coming back.
As for the hidden agenda, for once I doubt there really is one. A lot about the dealings with Iraq in the past have been out in the open for some time now. I doubt there’s much room for new developments to be real shockers. I mean we know the west supplied him with arms and chemicals (just like we did with pretty much any regime in the area at one time or another…), we know some governments were mixed up in the oil-for-food scandal…. I can’t think of many scenario’s that would really hit the headlines.
Forgot: he *got* a trial, if he had any juicy stuff to spill, why didnt he?
The trial he got was for an internal matter where the west wasn’t involved. He didn’t stand on trial for gassing the Kurds for instance – in which the west was involved.
Ish – “you can’t compare those people with us”? Did you forget that it was the Americans who began the war against Iraq – one-sided I might add – based on the premise of a lie? And that the trial was judged by judges who were put there by the Americans after careful scrutiny that they weren’t too pro-Saddam? The trial can hardly be called a sole Iraqi matter – which makes the outcome not only a blemish on their part, but on the Western part as well.
I agree with you that the book is closed now, and that that might prove to be a good thing. I also know that had he lived, pple would always look at him with hope that he might be freed and what not. It is a difficult issue.
I guess I just can’t be like JP and say: I am against the death penalty but I condone this. It is either for or against, in all cases. And I am against. So also against this one. And certainly against how it came about.
Totally agree with Lya on this issue!
Just one note on the Iraqis *still* living in the dark ages: they kept ancient civilisations (Roman and Greek texts for instance) very much alive while the west went through the dark ages. That there’s so much left of the ancient Roman and Greek cultures is owed to the Middle Eastern world. They came up with our numerical system too. I don’t think they *still* are in the middle ages, I think they are simply in it, while before Middle Eastern cultures florished while ours didn’t. It’s too easy to forget how much these cultures (brilliantly) contributed to the world as it is.
Oh and about the death penalty, I can see why they executed Saddam, but I personally think no one on this earth has the right to take another person’s life, no matter what crime they committed.
What’s the point in convicting him for more if he’s already sentenced to death for the 1st charge? That’s kinda like convicting someone to 600 years in prison… pretty pointless after the 1st 100 years.
As an aside, one reason they were in a hurry is that Iraqi law apparently doesnt allow the execution of convicts over the age of 70, which ment they had to do it before the end of april 2007.
*shrugs* Well, I know this makes me a horrible person and all, but Saddam deserved death and I’m glad he got it. Given the way he pointed fingers in every possible direction during his trial, somehow I doubt that he’d have come out with some shocking new secret had the trial gone on for *even longer*. Keep in mind, this man has been in jail since 2003, and he’s had very good reason to blame everyone besides himself.
And Aurora is right: he got death for one trial, making it silly for him to sit for another… particularly since trying Saddam for every despicable thing he did would take a decade. The death penalty should be a rare punishment reserved for only the most heinous of monsters- given rarely, but invoked swiftly. I think his execution is a step forward for the Iraqi people, and the death of a brutal, hated tyrant is arguably a GOOD way to end the year.
On the weapons in Iraq part: I think the Americans knew there were weapons in Iraq, why? Since they supplied them in the first place when Iraq was their friend against Iran.
The reason they didn’t find any, my guess, is that they gave Saddam months and months to bury, destroy or ship to neighboring countries.
International politics are tricky, and to say when it’s right to invade another country is another tricky issue, but at some point you have to stop talking and act for the sake of the world. The question remains, where is that point.
Oh he had them alright, I just very much doubt that he *still* had them, at least not in the quantities implied. Even if he got rid of them somehow, there’s a tremendous PR bonus for the US to be able to show the world they were right all along.